


eurydice burns

by orphan_account



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Akumatized Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir, Angst, Apocalypse, Character Death, Character Study, Chat Blanc - Freeform, Gen, Implied Relationships, prose
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-14
Updated: 2020-07-14
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:22:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 627
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25270822
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: He’s at the eye of his hurricane, arch-backed and tilt-headed, green, green gaze fixed on a painting with a gilded frame. He’s a clean collection of stark black lines and you think he’d be more at home in the d’Orsay among other displays of impressionism. Cautiously, you join him at the painting. He doesn’t so much as glance in your direction.(A conversation between Ladybug and Chat Blanc at the end of the universe.)
Relationships: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir & Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug
Kudos: 27





	eurydice burns

You find him in the Louvre. Slime-green flashes of light and toxic black molecules float in the air, and his trail of destruction kisses you so sweetly that you needn’t think twice as you approach him.

He’s at the eye of his hurricane, arch-backed and tilt-headed, green, green gaze fixed on a painting with a gilded frame. He’s a clean collection of stark black lines and you think he’d be more at home in the d’Orsay among other displays of impressionism. Cautiously, you join him at the painting. He doesn’t so much as glance in your direction.

“Recognize it?” he asks, and you flinch at the lucidity of him.

The painting is of a man and woman, him turning and her falling. Your partner languidly swirls a finger in the air, and the figures spring to life in the frame. The woman's face twists in horror as she slips, falling down deep into a black abyss. The man reaches out to no avail, lets out a silent plea.

"Orpheus…" you mutter. "Orpheus and Eurydice."

He nods, and you allow yourself to look at him full-on. His new suit is black, so black you think that if you touch him your hand might pass through it. It's dotted with constellations, shooting stars and novas flitting about with a brightness that chews at your retinas. Alya's necklace hangs around his neck like a noose.

"They will always fail," he says. “Them and everyone like them. Hades may lay bargains, but he can never be cheated."

You feel a rare stab of fury, white hot, and you know that he is right, that you will fail, but he is a cheater. You tell him so.

"My father was,” he says. He reaches, almost unconsciously, to touch the brooch clipped at his chest. “He tried to bring her up from the Underworld, but he looked back. He looked back and he saw me.”

“He’s gone,” you say. “Everybody…” You look at his hair, his wrists, his glasses, stolen miraculouses, the complete zodiac of star-granted power.

“We,” he says. “Are still here.”

You think of your friends and parents splattered across the floor, ground-smashed-crushed into cherry slushie red. (A keeper, you were a _keeper_ )

“No. We’re not.”

You think of waiting. Five days you’d spent out there in the shreds of the city, watching reality unravel like a ball of yarn. You were half-dying in the perpetual night, but the stars were still intact, and you watched them. You begged Pollux and Castor, Orion and Scorpius as they turned their backs on you.

In the midst of the traitorous stars, a perfect circle was punched into the sky. Creation-black. Yin.

“Every night the moon was new,” you say. “My moon. Why?”

He cups your cheeks and turns your face towards him, but you lock your gaze on the painting. Orpheus heaves, twisting and screaming. The hole to hell is as black as Chat’s suit. Eurydice is gone.

"You've given up," he notes, and there's no triumph behind it. He takes off your earrings. Eurydice burns.

"Would you do what Orpheus did?" you ask. "For me?"

He furrows, considers, nods. "Somewhere. Not here."

"Not anymore," you mutter, and a silent agreement buzzes between the two of you, an understanding.

"And would you for me?" he asks.

You look around you, really look; you look at your partner's strong jaw, unwavering arms, at your earrings in his ears. You watch in surrender as the universe is peeled down to its infrastructure.

"I am."

Adrien shakes his head, smiles slightly in a gesture you think might be a goodbye. The soda pop fizz of his cataclysm licks greedily at your skin.

The world goes ink-black, and you collapse in on yourself like a dying star.

**Author's Note:**

> In an attempt to start fresh (I've gotten tired of some of my old writing but couldn't bring myself to delete it), I've created this account. I plan to repost a few works from my old account and also put my new stuff here.
> 
> Find me on Tumblr [here](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/ilini).


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